Today has been our first full day in Camp Mantanani and it has been hot beyond words!!
At 8:00, we headed off across the island again, but this time much further than where we walked yesterday evening. We then spent the morning collecting plastic bottles and bits of plastic and styrofoam from the beach and the surrounding area. The whole place is like an actual tip, it's almost unbelievable. Then once we'd collected enough we began on the main task: using the rubbish to fill the bottles in order to make eco-bricks. These will be used for the walls of the Homestay community hall that they're building. In Malaysia, the government operate a program called Homestay which is where a few families are selected to act as hosts to visiting tourists, instead of them staying in hotels. Camps are helping the way this operates on Mantanani by building a little hall which will have an office and somewhere for the tourists to wait to meet their host families or to wait for their boat etc. Anyway, in an effort to be as sustainable as possible, this hall is being built using these eco-bricks rather than standard bricks, so it was our job to make them. Not to sound lazy, but it was lovely to do project work sitting down for once!
When we came back for lunch we were all so disgustingly sweaty that all 23 of us dived straight into the sea to cool off. I originally said that I was only going to paddle, but that idea didn't last very long! We all played games like Piggy in the Middle and just floated around, feeling like we were living in luxury.
Unfortunately, 2:00pm came and we had to head back to site again to carry on filling bottles. I found the walk there much harder this time as the temperature had shot up over lunch and some of the walk is across sand, so it can be quite hard-going. We continued filling the bottles, keeping ourselves entertained by playing the Categories game as we did so, and soon enough we were finished for the day.
Back at camp, most people jumped straight back into the sea again, but I chose to use the time to cool down in the shade and get some washing done (it's never-ending), as well as treating myself by shaving my legs for the first time since we left home...
After dinner I showered and now I'm just writing this as we wait for our welcome dance to begin, which should be starting very soon. We didn't have it last night as another group arrived today, so it's being done tonight to welcome both of our groups.
I also had my first experience of lying in a hammock today, and instead found it very comfortable. These ones are made of knotted rope though so laying in it with bare skin can be a bit uncomfy and can leave some really attractive patterns on your skin...
We also had a cow get into camp this afternoon. As I said, they're everywhere on this island, but our camp is enclosed so it's unusual for one to get in. This one was a little calf and was absolutely adorable, but was soon chased away by the security guard. When I say chased, I mean he wandered after it very leisurely...
9:10
I'm now ready for bed (I'm such a party animal out here). The welcome dance started a little later than it was supposed to as the dancers were held up at a local football tournament, where they won several games.
The dance here was very different to the other tribal dancers that we've seen so far. It was originally the traditional dance of the sea-gypsy people of the Sabah coastal region, but is now pretty much a lost tradition, so one of the women here has trained a dance troupe so that their tradition isn't lost forever. These dancers were much more focused on really subtle movements, particularly with their hands, and they had glittery decorations on all of their fingers so that they sparkled in the light when they moved.
They performed three dances, all to music played on a speaker, which was also different as previously the dances we've seen have been accompanied by gongs. The group consisted of three women and two young girls - one of the girls haltingly introduced us to the dance in English which was really lovely as you could see how difficult she found it but how eager she was to welcome us.
When they'd performed all three dances, they asked for volunteers to join in with two of them, and then we all had to join in with a train dance which was a bit like the Conga, only this one went backwards as well as forwards!
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